These mew - tents;

#monsterdon

this movie is actually really good for how on the nose it's a movie about keeping the war machine going by turning against Americans against each other; most specifically, Americans harboring foreign ideas and people in their minds and homes.

it's really an intensely paranoid fever dream. this pure fascist Americana.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

also, i guess the first time i saw the villain in this movie he was just reprising his role... in the Flintstones

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

It's hard to tell the typical dysfunctional 1950s family from the alien invasion dysfunction.

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LOL the slaves got themselves some shotguns. manifest that Franz Fanon!

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

BTWY'ALL! #Monsterdon killed my browser and ate my baby. had to killall the browser before it wrecked my whole computer. well done team!

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

I DID NOT KNOW you could use an observatory to spy on your neighbors

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#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars shout out to my favorite set in this movie, the Extremely Large science laboratory filled with test tubes of Science, that is used for late night work by the head Science Master supplemented with oddly stilted conversation.

An honorable mention goes to the diagonal pole striptease room, which I guess is the flying saucer's front porch or hotel lobby or something.

These aliens are literally the velvet underground. #monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

#Monsterdon I give #InvadersFromMars 4/5 Arm Tentacles of Authority. I would give it 3/5, but it gets +1 from me for having a needless number of tanks and tanklike objects.

The best character design goes to the top martian with the arm tentacles. The movie is also notable for having not one, but two stereotypical 1950s families (except that they were scientists), and also for a having an atomic rocket that didn't do anything. It bucks 1950s norms by having a hot lady doctor.

Nightmare? Time loop? Who knows. Shame about the ending, this was otherwise rather fun.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

I'm not sure whose dream sequence this is - the kid's or the head-in-a-ball's.

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the complete lack of a budget for interiors makes for some interesting surreal looking shots in this movie.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

#monsterdon #InvadersFromMars
characters so far:
dad (science master, now evil)
mom
kid (aspiring science master)
cops (ACAB)
other mom
other mom's child (also evil?)
Ominous Eerie Space Music!

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#Monsterdon Correction: the Neck Tentacles of Authority in #InvadersFromMars were actually Shoulder Tentacles of Authority.

I deeply regret this mistake.

If there's anything you learn from the #monsterdon experience, it's that they hated writing endings to their movies back in the 1950s. Easier to just chop it off and go home.

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Fun lab sat. But Bunsen burners shouldn't look like candles!

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#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars Someone died earlier... I can't remember who it was, but the autopsy reveals that the scar in the neck is from a little metal mind control device, which we very quickly determine is a mind control device.

I guess the martians zombify people until they aren't useful anymore and then explode them, which sounds like a mean thing to do.

anybody noticed Ms. Lady Doctor is wearing a white version of the now sand anussed mom? both the mom and dad and the cops are all wearing black. Kathy the pyromaniac was the only one dressed in color but she was a little girl.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

Gee willikers I am swelling up with pride seeing our boys drive by in tanks in stock footage

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#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars having the tank front covered, we now need some glorious trains, which we will use to carry our infantry boys to I guess help the tanks fight the sandbox.

I guess you should make sure you have combined arms, and at least two forms of transportation to fight a zombie sandbox.

"it involves surgery we've never known possible" says the lady who thinks planets have friction in space

phhhtttt

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so the farmer in Men in Black is a shout out to the dad in this movie, right?!?

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#monsterdon #InvadersFromMars The Famous Astronomer explains that the Martians probably live underground, or in spaceships, and have also grown a race of synthetic humans called Mutants to conquer Earth or something.

Then, after Gracefully Rotating Our Dome, we lower the telescope to look at an earthling Atomic Rocket! It's purpose is nuclear war, because of course it is. The characters seem to think this is a good thing.

heart-breaking kid thinks cops are gonna help him. the framing of the cop between those pillars was part Buñuel, part Hitchcock.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

WAIT! THAT'S IT?!?! THE KID GOES BACK TO SLEEP?!?! WTF?!?!

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

ok question next week can we start the movie by everyone making one post at @monsterdon so that we can all follow each other? buncha people whose posts i see only occasionally and didn't realize i wasn't following/nobody on my instance is but join us every week. #monsterdon

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars okay movie, I've seen these parts already why are you showing me them again? Show me the parts I haven't seen yet.

People paid to see this? #monsterdon

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars all the tanks this movie keeps showing us finally do something and start driving toward the sandbox, accompanied by soldiers who march over the matte painting and start digging... I guess to defeat the spaceship.

While we've mostly seen M10 tank destroyers, in the tank driving scene we also see some M4 Shermans and M3 Stuarts, but I think they are mostly stock footage and they probably just rented the M10s for this movie... or at least got more M10 stock footage.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars With General Andy Griffith having fallen into the sandbox, Colonel Mustache is now in charge.

Because we like making bad decisions, a long sergeant takes an M1 carbine and decides to poke the sandbox with the rifle bot, until it gets mad at him and eats him. This makes Colonel Mustache sad, because that was his favorite sergeant so he orders more tanks, which are conveyed to the battlefield via glorious trains.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars
Okay, are we sure that we have enough tanks to fight this flying saucer zombie sandbox? I mean, we clearly have a whole lot of tanks. Or maybe M10 tank destroyers and M8 greyhounds, which are both kind of like tanks but not quite.

How many tanks does it take to fight a sandbox with a flying saucer in it? I guess that's not a question I have enough context to answer.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars
We rotate the dome more and look at the Spooky Sandbox, only to see General Andy Griffith himself being tossed into the zombiefying sand hole!

Because our one solution to problems in this movie is to tattle, the famous scientist decides to tattle his way to the Pentagon, somehow leading to a montage of Tanks.

Fuck Yeah, Tanks! They're not just for fascists!

#monsterdon #InvadersFromMars Shockingly, the Famous Astronomer believes the kid's story about aliens and also calls the General Mayberry, who I assume is just Andy Griffith in an army uniform. He uses a secret scientist code number to show that he is a secret agent sciencemaster.

He then activates the glowing screen of glowing to explain that there might be a martian mothership hiding above earth's atmosphere, then leaves to show everyone his Kewl Rotating Dome!

Polio to the rescue.

#Monsterdon

#monsterdon #InvadersFromMars because the kid hasn't heard that snitches get stitches, he's spent most of this movie running around town trying to tattle on the aliens; so far this hasn't worked.

Finally he reaches the Biggest Cop, who has a neck scar and tries to report on him to the dad, so the kid throws a tandrum and escapes. The Second Biggest Cop (who is not more evil than a normal cop yet) summons a kid doctor.

#monsterdon #invadersFromMars I'm also kind of confused why the evil girl was setting the house on fire. Like first I thought she was maybe trying to kill the kid for being a witness, but why wouldn't they just drag the kid to the sandbox to convert him instead of burning a house down? that seems like a less stupid plan.

am fashionably late to the shenanigans but am here for this ish... and of course, i missed that opening monologue about scientists because why pay attention to whitemansplaining.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

The scientist had a signed flashlight?

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#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars OMG they did not do the lamest possible plot twist at the end! Instead they did a confusing plot twist where the start of the movie plays again for no reason? what?

I mean, that didn't make any sense but I guess was original?

So they're stuck in a time loop?
This could go on a while.

#monsterdon

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars dramatic music ensues as the spaceship prepares to take off while the army tries to set demolition charges to blow it up. Two of the simps grab the conical guns and set to them to radioactive, melting some walls for mischief.

The army guys use the questionable strategy of telling everyone to leave while two of them try to hold the simps off... like guys... I think you have trouble fighting the martians when you outnumber them?

LMAO so the alien brain devices are vibrators?!?!

oh hell naw.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars shout out to the odd scene where the two green simps carry away the round TV with the Neck Tentacle leader guy on it. I guess we don't want to throw away our space TV; it was expensive.

OH MY GOD IT'S STARTING AGAAAAIN

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IT WAS ALL A DREAM

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#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars Meanwhile, above the puny earthlings are using military strategy and smartly having their 10,000+ tanks shoot one area of the sandbox as a distraction as they sneak in elsewhere to fight in the dungeon levels and capture the spaceship.

The doctor is taken to the zombification table, knocked out and subjected to the whirling needle of mind control device implantation, while the kid is carried away to presumably be enslaved later.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars so the martians carry away the doctor and the kid into the spaceship, which is a bit like a cross between a modernist art gallery and a pole dancing night club.

I guess the leader with the big brain is just on the TV screen, and is directing the sergeant to interrogate the doctor and the kid. I guess the Martians have one leader (who has a big brain and Neck Tentacles of Authority and a bunch of slave drones who are just walking simps.

Their puny bullets are no match for the green plushie jumpsuit.

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#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars we finaly get some aliens; they look kind of like the expendable bad guys from the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, only green. They have a boss who has a big brain and some neck tentacles.

The martians are armed with conical bazooka guns, but prefer to carry away our women and children with their arms, so they can scream and squirm in protest.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars weird interlude as a scientist is playing with liquid science tubes even though his wife died and his assistant talks to him about that.

meanwhile, the evil mom and I think the evil dad show up to the science guy's test tube house and trick a guard cop with a cunning Damsel-In-Car-With-Engine-Distress ruse so they can sneak in and assassinate the scientist.

It doesn't work though, because he bent down at the right time and the bullet missed him.

"We need to pad this movie out, what have you got for me?"

"Well, I've got a few hundred hours of tank maneuvers on film?"

"Cut it, splice it in there"

#monsterdon

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars
first act of this movie: kid runs around and tattles to everyone, until eventually we tattle to the pentagon
second act of this movie: we surround a hidden spaceship and explain what it is, and sandwich every scene with a parade of M10 tank destroyers.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars after squinting at the sandbox with binoculars for a few minutes, we conclude that the flying saucer that must be inside must have used a radioactive ray gun to bury itself in the sand and hide.

I don't think that radiation works that way, or that any part of that explanation makes any sense, but this is a movie so the first explanation for something science fictional is always right, no matter how dumb it is.

David's dad has a bit of an Adam West feel.

#Monsterdon

THE COPS GOT SAND ANUSSED!!!

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so i guess this thunder is another one of those things you realize Steven Spielberg ripped off from sci-fi b-movies

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That's a lot of makeup for the first few moments after wake-up

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@Zerofactorial idk i just add everyone I don't recognize to an exclusive list (one that doesn't add to home feed but i also get a feed of just monsterdon posters during the week which is lovely), #monsterdon is definitely an um high traffic time for our instance but i would hope that other instances could sustain yno normal things like following ppl

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars Okay, so we've set the dynamite detonator, which uses a stylish and retro windmill themed detonation clock. We use a grenade to cause a cave in to get away from the martians but are now trapped and need to dig out or something.

We discovered that guns are crap against the green simps, but grenades work fine. XCom teaches that grenades stop you from recovering alien artifacts, but the green simps don't carry much so that's probably fine.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars our RPG party of army dudes encounter their first mob, one of the green simps who they shoot but don't kill. They advance to the striptease room, where the simp ambushes an army guy and throws him down a hole.

Another simp uses his super simp strength to toss Captain Exposition, who then retaliates with submachine gun fire.

The famous astronomer, who is the lady doctor's husband I guess, rescues her from the examination table, but she's probably already a zombie.

He pissed off the kid. He's doomed now. #Monsterdon

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars we learn that the parents are now in the operating room after being captured by the army for failing to do a car escape correctly.

Then problems intensify as a sand pit opens under the kid and the doctor, sucking them into the cave and/or spaceship. Oh no!

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars Under the watchful cover of at least 10,000 tanks, the army guys sneak some dynamite into the sandbox and detonate, revealing an incongrously bubbly looking cave that they descend into, entering the dungeon stage of this movie.

Having actually thought about parts of this movie, Captain Exposition explains that the radioactive sandbox drilling ray must fuse the sand into a cave of pretty globes. Neat!

The aliens seem to be from the planet Disco.

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#monsterdon padding. So much military stock photography. Did I work at Camp Lejune!?! They went too far. ;)

Oh, I see, Kathy was just converting her house to transmit infrared rays by setting it on fire. #monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

"Can we get some coffee and sandwiches up on this roof corporal?"

#monsterdon

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars since this is the exposition part of the movie, the Famous Scientist explains that the dad and the other mom's child's dad all work at the atomic rocket factory, which I guess is why the martians want to kill them and explains why I was confused by the gasoline fire.

"Everyone on the roof!"

#monsterdon

#monsterdon #InvadersFromMars shocking everyone in the 1950s, the doctor is a Hot Lady Doctor who doesn't have a neck thing yet. She tells the kid that "Doctors are like ministers, you can tell them anything!" which makes me uncomfortable. So the kid tells her the story and then asks the not-yet-evil-second-biggest-cop for details to try to corroborate it.

"...take a look through this giant telescope."
<screams>
"oh, sorry, it's daytime. My bad."

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

so you mean to tell me this movie is an actual source for Close Encounters of The Third Kind?

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

I'm perfectly normal in every way. Just a bit of unusual hostility.

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Most aggressive orchestra in these movies in quite some time #monsterdon

Interesting tidbit - the kid "David" in this 1953 version is played by Jimmy Hunt who also plays a police chief in the 1986 remake of the movie.

#monsterdon

BTW the little green martians & their slaves are literal sand n... never mind.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

🦖#MONSTERDON THANK YOU🦖

Thanks everyone. Taking a little space here to appreciate the commentary from the Real Time Film Analysis Squad.

All of your comments hit me right in the puss. Some toots are simply inspired. Sufferin' cats, this whole event is very special.

There's a lot of love in the timeline and we shouldn't be afraid to talk about it.

BTW, 3000 condoms were blown by people making this movie.

Thanks to our own head-in-a-globe leader @Taweret and to @cheribaker (Bingo card!)

"The cooled, bubbled-up effect on some areas of the blasted tunnel walls was created by first using inflated balloons pinned to the tunnel walls. In film tests they looked like balloons stuck to the walls, so the effects crew tried smaller inflated latex condoms. Further testing showed these looked much more convincing, and the crew wound up inflating more than 3,000 and then sticking them to portions of the tunnel set's walls."

#monsterdon

Checkov's IR drill

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yeah, that's right, give the kid a bazooka

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Gotta hit them WHERE?

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You morons, the anal probe goes in the other end! Don't you know ANYTHING about human anatomy? #monsterdon

the orb gold alien looks to the left AND right. what range.

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The alien decided that a speaking role would be beneath him. #Monsterdon

#Monsterdon The thing my mom always pointed out to me about movies from the 1950s was that a lot of the people playing members of the military had been in WW2, and as a result, they often portrayed those characters accordingly. Using the right lingo and actions. Some of those guys weren't really actors yet, though, and so their delivery could be a bit flat.

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars after lots of tanks driving around for seemingly no damn reason, we now get an Epic Car Chase as the zombified would be assassins try to escape from the army but are then caught.

56 minutes in and we've got some Martians!

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Why do these indoor buildings show exactly zero things on the walls?

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everyone making this movie: man, tanks are so fucking cool

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"Holy mackerel I always knew Gen Mayberry would go up if you took a pot shot at him."

#monsterdon

Suffering Cats!

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars

Everybody's having aneurysms

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That's it, a radioactive ray. When a regular ray won't do. #monsterdon

DOOM CHOIR

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Nothing says alien invasion like the train-full-of-tanks scene.

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Priority 814 sounds pretty far down the priority scale…

#monsterdon

mute ants

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oh-uh George got abducted?!? the giant sand anus ate him up?!?

#Monsterdon #InvadersFromMars